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I'm working on a PHP app which needs to be able to contact someone in the following ways...

Page (if the user's svc doesn't have a Num@mci.com-type msg sender)
Fax (I could send a postscript document, or in any other format)
Voicemail or Answering Machine messages (how does something detect the beep?)

Does anyone have any idea whatsoever as to how to do any of those? Is there a free unix-compatible program that can do any of those (in any programming language of course) that is open source?

Is there a universal paging protocol that all pagers follow? If so, does anyone know where I can read about it? Same thing with fax.

Voicemail and answering machines: this isn't nearly as important but has anyone successfully made a computer application that can deal with these and play a WAV over the line? Without buying a whole phone server like tech support places do..

The phone charges don't matter, and I have access to a completely clear phone line (well, I will soon).

yes i probably can help. the tone rcvd when calling a pager is two tones of specific frequencies, decibel level (power), q and several other characteristics.

the dialing interface may be as simple as a modem. modems are capable of detecting and decoding many tone pair combos, for example dial tone is a combination of two frequencies. so you may be in real luck.

first search for manufacturers of paging terminals. these are switches, similar to pbxs that are trunked to central offices and connected to an antenna. some, probably all will do a store and forward to the pager. this means the ready to receive tone is from the terminal. so it is needed to ask the mfgr for the tone pair, etc. ...........

i have over 30 yrs in telephony, have managed sys engn for a co manufacturer, advisory engn for rolm, ibm, siemens, one patent, etc. eMail me.